1. To constitute jurisdiction over an appeal from a state court,
it must appear affirmatively from the record not only that a
federal question was presented for decision to the highest court of
the State having jurisdiction, but that its decision of the federal
question was necessary to the determination of the cause. P.
300 U. S.
18.
2. Whether these requirements have been met is itself a federal
question.
Id.
3. In deciding whether it has jurisdiction, this Court must
determine whether a federal question was necessarily decided by the
state court; the determination must rest upon an examination of the
record, and, while a certificate or statement by the state court
that a federal question has been presented to it and necessarily
passed upon may aid this Court in such examination of the record,
it cannot avail to foreclose the inquiry or to import a federal
question into the record.
Id.
4. In the exercise of appellate jurisdiction, this Court may
make such disposition of the case as justice shall require. A case
may be remanded to a state court to afford opportunity for an
amendment of the record appropriate to show definitely the precise
nature of the federal question, how it was raised, and the grounds
of its
Page 300 U. S. 15
disposition by the state court, to the end that this Court may
be able to decide whether a substantial question within its
jurisdiction was necessarily determined. P.
300 U. S.
25.
271 N.Y. 564, 3 N.E.2d 186, judgment vacated.
Appeal from the affirmance of a judgment of the Supreme Court of
New York, Appellate Division (246 App.Div. 781, 285 N.Y.S. 527),
which had affirmed a judgment of the Special Term dismissing the
complaint in a suit to recover a deficiency judgment on a
collateral bond which had been executed as additional security for
a bond and mortgage debt.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.
Upon the filing of the jurisdictional statement, the appellee
moved to dismiss the appeal upon the ground that the decision of
the federal question now raised was not necessary to the
determination of the cause. Rule 12,
Page 300 U. S. 16
par. 3. Further consideration of the motion was postponed to the
hearing upon the merits.
The record is brief. The suit was brought against the executor
of the estate of Herbert W. Hanan, deceased, to recover a
deficiency judgment upon a bond secured by a mortgage which had
been foreclosed in an earlier suit in which the mortgaged property
had been sold and an application for a deficiency judgment had been
refused. The judgment in the present suit dismissed the amended
complaint upon the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to
constitute a cause of action.
The amended complaint alleged that, in 1907, the John H. Hanan
Realty Company, with John H. Hanan, had executed a bond for
$118,000, and as collateral security the John H. Hanan Realty
Company had made a mortgage covering certain premises in the city
of New York; that later the bond and mortgage were assigned to John
H. Hanan; that, in 1920, John H. Hanan, together with Herbert W.
Hanan (defendant's testator) and Addison G. Hanan, had executed
their joint and several bond to the guardians of the estates of
certain infants in the sum of $60,000, and, as collateral security
therefor, John H. Hanan had assigned to the obligees the bond and
mortgage first mentioned, and that thereafter the bond of John H.
Hanan, Herbert W. Hanan, and Addison G. Hanan had been assigned,
together with the bond and mortgage first mentioned, to the
plaintiff.
A copy of the bond in suit was annexed. It recited that it was
executed as additional security for the payment of the
first-mentioned bond and mortgage, upon which the principal sum of
$60,000 remained unpaid, and that the time for payment had been
extended as provided in a contemporaneous agreement. The condition
of the obligation was the payment of that sum with interest as
the
Page 300 U. S. 17
same should become due and payable according to the terms and
conditions of the bond and mortgage first mentioned and the
extension agreement.
The amended complaint further alleged that the John H. Hanan
Realty Company had failed to comply with the terms of the bond and
mortgage first mentioned, and had failed to pay the taxes on the
mortgaged premises or the interest on the bond; that, thereupon, in
September, 1933, the plaintiff had brought an action to foreclose
the mortgage, and that the defendant herein was a party to that
action; that, pursuant to judgment therein, the mortgaged premises
were sold, and the proceeds were applied on account of the
indebtedness due the plaintiff; that the referee's report of sale
was confirmed; that thereafter a motion was "duly made for a
deficiency judgment" which was denied and the foreclosure action
was discontinued as to the defendant herein by the filing of a
stipulation; that the deficiency due the plaintiff was $58,523.35,
upon which $554.01 had been received by the plaintiff from the
receiver in the foreclosure action, leaving due $57,969.34 which
the decedent, Herbert W. Hanan, became bound to pay.
The amended complaint and the motion to dismiss for the
insufficiency of its allegations contained no mention of a federal
question. The trial court granted the motion with the mere
statement that, "[t]he mortgage moratorium laws apply to the facts
alleged in the said complaint." The judgment of dismissal was
affirmed by the Appellate Division without opinion. 246 App.Div.
781, 285 N.Y.S. 527. The Court of Appeals granted leave to appeal,
and in May, 1936, affirmed the judgment, also without opinion. 271
N.Y. 564, 3 N.E.2d 186. In the entire progress of the cause to this
point of determination by the highest court of the State, the
record discloses no reference to a federal question.
Page 300 U. S. 18
In June, 1936, upon motion, the Court of Appeals amended its
remittitur by adding the following:
"A question under the Federal Constitution was presented and
necessarily passed upon by this Court. The plaintiff contended that
chapter 794 of the Laws of the New York, enacted in 1933, Ex.Sess.,
as amended (sections 1083-a and 1083-b of Civil Practice Act),
impair the obligations of contracts, and thus violate Article I, §
10, of the Constitution of the United States. This Court held that
such laws do not violate said provision of Article I, § 10, of the
Constitution of the United States."
271 N.Y. 662, 3 N.E.2d 473-474.
It is solely upon this statement in the amended remittitur that
we are asked to review the judgment and to pass upon the
constitutionality of the state statute. We are not aided by any
discussion by the state court of the question thus described, or by
its explication or construction of the statute cited, or by a
statement of the particular application of the statute to which the
paragraph in the amended remittitur is addressed.
Before we may undertake to review a decision of the court of a
State, it must appear affirmatively from the record not only that
the federal question was presented for decision to the highest
court of the State having jurisdiction, but that its decision of
the federal question was necessary to the determination of the
cause.
Lynch v. New York, 293 U. S.
52,
293 U. S. 54,
and cases there cited. Whether these requirements have been met is
itself a federal question. As this Court must decide whether it has
jurisdiction in a particular case, this Court must determine
whether the federal question was necessarily passed upon by the
state court. That determination must rest upon an examination of
the record. A certificate or statement by the state court
* that a
federal
Page 300 U. S. 19
question has been presented to it and necessarily passed upon is
not controlling. While such a certificate or statement may aid this
Court in the examination of the record, it cannot avail to
foreclose the inquiry which it is our duty to make or to import
into the record a federal question which otherwise the record
wholly fails to present.
In
Commercial Bank of Cincinnati
v. Buckingham's Executors, 5 How. 317, this Court
was asked to decide a question which was said to be presented under
the contract clause with respect to the validity of a statute of
Ohio. The Supreme Court of that State entered upon its record an
elaborate certificate stating that the validity of the statute was
drawn in question upon the ground that, as applied to the charter
of the plaintiffs in error, it
"impaired the obligations thereof, and was repugnant to the
constitution of the United States, and that the decision of this
Court [the Ohio court] was in favor of the validity of the said act
of the legislature as so applied."
Notwithstanding the certificate, the case was dismissed for want
of jurisdiction.
Id., 5 p.
46 U. S. 343. The
Court said:
"It is not enough, that the record shows that 'the plaintiff in
error contended and claimed' that the judgment of the court
impaired the obligation of a contract, and violated the provisions
of the constitution of the United States, and 'that this claim was
overruled by the court,' but it must appear, by clear and necessary
intendment, that the question must have been raised, and
Page 300 U. S. 20
must have been decided, in order to induce the judgment. Let us
inquire, then, whether it appears on the face of this record that
the validity of a statute of Ohio, 'on the ground of its repugnancy
to the constitution or laws of the United States,' was drawn in
question in this case."
Id., p.
46 U. S.
341.
Pursuing that essential inquiry, the Court found that the
question decided by the state court was one of the construction of
the statute, and not of its validity.
In
Lawler v.
Walker, 14 How. 149, the Supreme Court of Ohio
certified that the validity of statutes of the State had been drawn
in question as being in violation of the Federal Constitution, and
that the court had held the statutes to be valid. The certificate
in that case was found to be vague and indefinite, but the Court
also restated the above-quoted ruling of
Commercial Bank of
Cincinnati v. Buckingham's Executors, supra. While, in
Parmelee
v.Lawrence, 11 Wall. 36, the certificate was made
by the presiding judge of the state court, and not by the court
itself, we took occasion to say:
"We will add, if this Court should entertain jurisdiction upon a
certificate alone in the absence of any evidence of the question in
the record, then the Supreme Court of the State can give the
jurisdiction in every case where the question is made by counsel in
the argument. The office of the certificate, as it respects the
Federal question, is to make more certain and specific what is too
general and indefinite in the record, but is incompetent to
originate the question within the true construction of the 25th
section [of the Judiciary Act]."
Id., p.
78 U. S. 39.
This statement was quoted with approval in
Powell v.
Brunswick County, 150 U. S. 433,
150 U. S.
439.
The case of
Brown v. Atwell, 92 U. S.
327, affords another illustration of the rule. The
judgment was rendered in the Court of Appeals of New York and an
entry was made in its record that, on the argument of the
Page 300 U. S. 21
appeal, it was claimed by the appellant that the Act of Congress
of 1836 known as the Patent Act governed the effect of the several
transfers relating to the letters patent appearing in the case, and
that the court had decided against the claims urged under that act.
This Court observed that, until the certificate of the Court of
Appeals, it nowhere appeared in the record that any question was
raised as to the effect of the patent laws upon the title under
consideration. And the Court said (
id., pp.
92 U. S.
329-330):
"We have often decided that it is not enough to give us
jurisdiction over the judgments of the State courts for the record
to show that a Federal question was argued or presented to that
court for decision. It must appear that its decision was necessary
to the determination of the cause, and that it was actually
decided, or that the judgment as rendered could not have been given
without deciding it.
Commercial Bank of Cincinnati v.
Buckingham's Executors, 5 How.
46 U. S.
341;
Lawler et al. v. Walker et al., 14 How.
55 U. S. 154;
R.R. Co. v.
Rock, 4 Wall.
71 U. S. 180;
Parmelee
v.Lawrence, 11 Wall.
78 U. S. 38."
"The same cases also establish the further rule, that 'the
office of the certificate, as it respects the Federal question, is
to make more specific and certain that which is too general and
indefinite in the record, but is incompetent to originate the
question.'"
The Court found that the record did not present the federal
question to which the certificate referred, and the case was
accordingly dismissed.
The rule was succinctly stated in
Rector v. City Deposit
Bank Co., 200 U. S. 405,
200 U. S. 412,
as follows:
"It is elementary that the certificate of a court of last resort
of a state may not import a Federal question into a record where
otherwise such question does not arise; it is equally elementary
that such a certificate may serve to elucidate the determination
whether a Federal question exists. "
Page 300 U. S. 22
Thus, the true function of a certificate or statement of a state
court, by way of amendment of, or addition to, the record, is to
aid in the understanding of the record, to clarify it by defining
the federal question with reasonable precision, and by showing how
the question was raised and decided, so that this Court, upon the
record as thus clarified, may be able to see that the federal
question was properly raised and was necessarily determined. Our
decisions in cases where certificates have been found useful should
be read in the light of that fundamental consideration. In
Marvin v. Trout, 199 U. S. 212,
199 U. S. 223,
as explained in
Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk &
Ocean View Ry. Co., 228 U. S. 596,
228 U. S. 599,
there was "a record disclosure of the existence of the Federal
question," which was also certified. In the latter case, it was
assumed that the certificate, made by order of the state court,
operated to show that some federal question was decided, but, on
examining the record, this Court found the question to be
unsubstantial, and denied rehearing, the case having previously
been dismissed for want of jurisdiction.
Id., p.
228 U. S. 603. The
record in
Cincinnati Packet Co. v. Bay, 200 U.
S. 179,
200 U. S. 182,
showed that the federal question had been raised, and the
certificate aided in disclosing that the question was not treated
as having been raised too late under the local procedure, a point
upon which the state court was the judge. Applying the rule, in
Rector v. City Deposit Bank Co., supra, the Court
concluded that, as the suit was brought by a trustee in bankruptcy
by virtue of the authority conferred upon him by the act of
Congress, the certificate made "clear the fact, if it were
otherwise doubtful, that rights under the bankrupt law were relied
upon and passed upon below."
See also Capital City Dairy Co. v.
Ohio, 183 U. S. 238,
183 U. S.
243-244. It was in the light of these decisions that the
question was presented in
Whitney v. California,
274 U. S. 357,
274 U. S.
360-362. The writ of error had been dismissed
Page 300 U. S. 23
for want of jurisdiction (269 U.S. 530), and a motion for
rehearing was granted.
Id., p. 538. The Court of Appeal of
the State, as an addition to the record, entered an order stating
that the question whether the California Criminal Syndicalism Act
and its application were repugnant to the Fourteenth Amendment to
the Federal Constitution was considered and passed upon by the
court. While this Court said that the record did not show that the
defendant had raised or the state court had decided a federal
question except as it appeared from that order, the record did
disclose facts indicating the presence of the federal question
which the order of the state court said was actually presented and
decided, and accordingly jurisdiction was entertained. And it has
been in recognition of the established principle governing the
exercise of our jurisdiction, and not as a departure from it, that
we have said that opportunity might be afforded upon seasonable
application to obtain a certificate from the state court where it
appeared that an appropriate certificate might lead to a better
understanding of the record.
See Lynch v. New York, supra;
International Steel Co. v. Surety Co., 297 U.
S. 657,
297 U. S.
662.
In some of the cases cited above, we found from our examination
of the record that, notwithstanding the certificate, the decision
of the state court rested upon an adequate nonfederal ground, and
hence we were without jurisdiction.
See Commercial Bank of
Cincinnati v. Buckingham's Executors, supra; Brown v. Atwell,
supra; Powell v. Brunswick County, supra. A similar result
follows where, even assuming that the state court has formally
determined a federal question, it does not appear to have been a
substantial one.
See Consolidated Turnpike Co. v. Norfolk &
Ocean View Ry. Co., supra. In other cases, an examination of
the record has left the Court in doubt as to what has actually been
determined. That is the situation in the present case.
Page 300 U. S. 24
The appellee points to the provision of § 1078 of the Civil
Practice Act of New York (enacted long before the so-called
moratorium acts) that, after final judgment for the plaintiff in a
foreclosure action, no other action shall be maintained to recover
any part of the mortgage debt without leave of the court in which
the former action was brought. In the instant case, the amended
complaint does not allege that such leave was obtained. We are also
advised of decisions by the state court, prior to the one here
sought to be reviewed, construing Chapter 794 of the Laws of New
York of 1933 (§§ 1083-a and 1083-b of the Civil Practice Act) to
which the amended remittitur refers. That Act (§ 1083-a) forbids a
judgment for any residue of the debt remaining unsatisfied after
sale of the mortgaged property, except as therein provided.
Provision is made for an application by the creditor in the
foreclosure action for leave to enter a deficiency judgment, and
thereupon the court is to determine the fair and reasonable market
value of the mortgaged premises, and is to make an order directing
the entry of a deficiency judgment, which is to be for an amount
equal to that remaining due, less the market value as determined or
the sale price of the property, whichever shall be the higher, and
if no motion for a deficiency judgment is thus made, the proceeds
of the foreclosure sale are to be regarded as full satisfaction of
the mortgage debt, "and no right to recover any deficiency in any
action or proceeding shall exist." Section 1083-b provides that, in
actions, other than foreclosure actions, to recover for an
indebtedness secured solely by a mortgage on real property and
originating simultaneously with such mortgage and secured thereby,
against anyone "directly or indirectly or contingently liable
therefor," the party against whom the money judgment is demanded
shall be entitled to set off the reasonable market value of the
mortgaged property less prior liens.
Page 300 U. S. 25
The Court of Appeals had sustained the constitutional validity
of this legislation, which would seem to be applicable to an action
upon a collateral bond such as that described in the amended
complaint herein.
See Klinke v. Samuels, 264 N.Y. 144, 190
N.E. 324;
City Bank Farmers' Trust Co. v. Ardlea
Incorporation, 267 N.Y. 224, 196 N.E. 34.
With these recent decisions in mind, it may be, as has been
suggested, that the Court of Appeals considered the federal
question, which it described in the amended remittitur as relating
to the validity of §§ 1083-a and 1083-b, to be no more than a
challenge of the requirement that the right to a deficiency
judgment should be heard and determined in the foreclosure action,
and sustained the validity of that requirement, without reviewing,
or deeming it necessary to review, the questions which could have
been raised, and, if properly raised, could have been brought to
this Court in the foreclosure action to which both the plaintiff
and defendant herein had been parties. Whether this view of the
action of the state court is the correct one, we are unable
satisfactorily to determine. If its decision was in truth based
upon the theory that, by a proper construction of the statute or
for any other reason, the extent of the deficiency or the right to
recover it had been finally determined in a prior litigation, there
was no longer a necessity to inquire whether the statute would be
constitutional in its application to a different case -- a case
lacking the feature of any prior determination -- and an answer to
that inquiry would be superfluous, even if attempted.
In the exercise of our appellate jurisdiction, we have power not
only to correct errors in the judgment under review, but to make
such disposition of the case as justice requires. We have applied
this principle to cases coming from state courts where supervening
changes had occurred since the entry of the judgment, and where the
record failed adequately to state the facts underlying
Page 300 U. S. 26
the decision of the federal question.
See Patterson v.
Alabama, 294 U. S. 600,
294 U. S. 607;
Villa v. Van Schaick, 299 U. S. 152. We
have afforded an opportunity for appropriate presentation of the
question by an amendment of the record as the state court might be
advised.
Villa v. Van Schaick, supra. We think that a
similar opportunity should be accorded here in order that
uncertainty may be removed and that the precise nature of the
federal question, how it was raised, and the grounds of its
disposition may be definitely set forth so that we may be able to
decide whether a substantial question within our jurisdiction has
necessarily been determined.
For that purpose, the judgment is vacated, and the cause is
remanded for further proceedings.
It is so ordered.
* As to the insufficiency of a certificate by the chief justice
or presiding justice of the state court,
See Mississippi & M. Railroad
Co. v. Rock, 4 Wall. 177,
71 U. S.
178-180;
Powell v. Brunswick County,
150 U. S. 433,
150 U. S. 439;
Sayward v. Denny, 158 U. S. 180,
158 U. S. 183;
Henkel v. Cincinnati, 177 U.S. 170, 171;
Home for
Incurables v. New York, 187 U. S. 155,
187 U. S. 158;
Fullerton v. Texas, 196 U. S. 192,
196 U. S. 194;
Louisville & Nashville R. Co. v. Smith, 204 U.
S. 551,
204 U. S. 561;
Seaboard Air Line Ry. v. Duvall, 225 U.
S. 477,
225 U. S. 481;
Connecticut General Life Ins. Co. v. Johnson, 296 U.S.
535;
Purcell v. New York Central R. Co., 296 U.S. 545.